


ice gray skin (between me and you)

by kimaracretak



Category: Dare Me (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Having a Nemesis (Human Experience) - Freeform, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: "Careful, Coach." Beth turns around, leans back against the wall. Wonders what kind of invitation Coach looks for. What kind of invitation Coach needs, in her sports bra and leggings and hair fighting for its curl against the damp air. "Keep on talking like that, and I might start thinking you're doing this cause you like me.""I don't like you." Too quick to be a lie, and Beth doesn't think she's imagining how her eyes are lingering on Beth's tits. "But I'm doing this for you anyway."
Relationships: Beth Cassidy/Colette French
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39
Collections: Robot Rainbow 2020





	ice gray skin (between me and you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ictus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ictus/gifts).



Glitter swirls around Beth's feet, chokes up the drain just like all the things Addy hasn't been saying lately stick in Beth's throat. The shower's stuck in lukewarm hell, giving her nothing but the texture of the droplets against her skin - no heat, no chill, hardly even pressure. 

But the locker room's empty, just her and the bottle waiting in her locker and the empty gym out through the doors - a deserted kingdom, but still hers. She'll take it, for now, until she can figure our how to get Addy back.

She feels Coach's eyes on her before she sees her, the only gaze that can sweep her body up and down and make her feel invisible. Beth pulls her hair over her left shoulder, flexes the muscles in her back. Skin ripples tight and hot over the imprint of Tacy's foot on her right arm, and she doesn't turn around.

This is her body. Doesn't matter how it makes her feel, Coach still has to look, and Beth's not giving that power up for anything.

"Addy without Beth, that I'm used to." Coach is still wearing her heels - two clicks across the slick tile, sure as anything. It'd be too easy if she fell now. "Beth without Addy, now, that's interesting."

"That's a word for it." Beth crosses her arms over her chest, tilts her face up to meet the spray. "It's what you've been trying for since day one. See something you like, _Coach_?" The _ch_ snaps brittle between her teeth. She wonders how much of her lipstick is still clinging stubborn to her skin.

"Eyes on your girl, Cassidy," Coach says, and the words shiver down Beth's spine like a threat. "Where is Addy?"

As if either of them didn't know. "Yeah, well, someone's gotta keep eyes out for her. I was always better at that part."

"Got a funny way of showing it."

Beth's hand curls into a fist over her heart. _Bitch_. She wants to turn around. Like hell she'll give Coach the satisfaction of turning around. "You're here, aren't you? You're not with her."

Coach makes one of those soft, skeptical noises of hers. "This kind of jealousy is why you aren't top girl."

Beth breathes once, twice. Reaches out and snaps the water off, the handle's chill sending shockwaves across her palm. "You're wrong. I was top girl before you and I'll be top girl long after you're gone."

"Really?" She can hear Coach's heels again - around the partition, behind one of the banks of lockers, and then a towel hits her in the back, the implied order clear. Beth lets it hit the floor. "You think top girl just means flying, Cassidy, you have a hell of a lot more to learn about being on the ground than I thought you needed."

Coach's footsteps return and Beth bends over, slow and deliberate, to grab the towel. It's damp and cold, clinging to Beth's skin as she wraps it just tightly enough around herself that Coach would have to want to see anything interesting before she'd catch a glimpse.

"Careful, Coach." Beth turns around, leans back against the wall. Wonders what kind of invitation Coach looks for. What kind of invitation Coach needs, in her sports bra and leggings and hair fighting for its curl against the damp air. "Keep on talking like that, and I might start thinking you're doing this cause you like me."

"I don't like you." Too quick to be a lie, and Beth doesn't think she's imagining how her eyes are lingering on Beth's tits. "But I'm doing this for you anyway."

"Don't baby me." She's biting her lip - can feel the indentations of her teeth hot and filling with blood. Her kingdom, and more than one of Coach's rules.

Coach leans over, opens a locker with one lazy figertip. Dips a hand in, comes back with bourbon - RiRi's. "Wouldn't dream of it, Cassidy." She uncaps the bottle as she closes the space between them, and Beth presses her hands flat against the wall. "You're a lot of things, but you're not a baby."

"So," and she hates how unsteady her voice is all of a sudden, faced with the heat of Coach's body all up against hers - her body all hard and tight and _familiar_ in the worst of ways. "We're on the same page, then."

Coach presses the lip of the bottle against Beth's mouth, and Beth grits her teeth against the glass. "No? I thought this was the currency of apology for you girls."

"Not for me," Beth says. Her voice whispers across the mouth of the bottle, echoes in the half-empty glass. The air reeks of bourbon and shampoo and sweat, and it's going to her head - must be, for how badly she's staring up at Coach, like she's thirteen again and hasn't learned how to want the safe things yet.

"What, then?" She sounds curious for real, for the first time since Beth's met her, and that, more than anything, makes Beth think she should be afraid.

But she hasn't learned how to be afraid of anything else yet, either.

"Kiss me," she says. Smiles and flutters her eyelashes and puts everything of Addy that she can in the words. "Kiss me the way Addy wants you to kiss her."

Colette laughs once, short and sharp and giving absolutely nothing away. "You have no idea what you're asking. From me or for her."

Beth closes her lips over the mouth of the bottle before she can say something, anything else - _I do, you're lying, only things that you want to give me_ -

She's shown too much, too soon, and they both know that this can't be the same kind of silly as something yelled from a car window.

Colette's other hand slips around the back of Beth's head as she tilts the bottle for Beth to drink. It burns her tongue and throat going down, burns something almost like feeling back into her shower-numbed skin. "Drink up, Cassidy," she says, almost soft as her fingers curl into Beth's hair. "And we'll never talk about this again."

For the first time, Beth believes her.

For the first time, it almost feels nice.


End file.
